Category: Ealing and Northfield

Southall Black Sisters (SBS) have certainly been waging an effective media campaign against Ealing council and its plans to look again at how it spends roughly £100K a year helping victims of domestic violence. SBS have been in receipt of a similar sum for a number of years which is effectively about 10% of the council’s current grants budget.

On the one hand the council says they want to commission a more broadly based service with the money that addresses needs across the borough and all communities. On the other SBS say that the money must stay with them. One of the basic chores of being a charity/voluntary organisation is justifying what you do with your grants. The council wants the freedom to decide its priorities and to incentivise the third sector to contribute. SBS don’t want to play the game and they think that they can avoid the process by creating a stink.

The images I have used here come SBS’s Facebook page which has 736 friends. Yesterday Yasmin Alibhai-Brown was writing about them in the Evening Standard and the was a report in the Guardian that the chairman of SBS, one Pragna Patel, has asked David Cameron to intervene.

Apparently Sonika Nirwal, who was until recently leader of the Ealing Labour group, has resigned her council seat too giving rise to a by-election in the Greenford Broadway ward. This will most likely take place along with the Mayoral election on May 1st.

This will be an interesting competition. At the London-wide local elections two years ago there was nothing in it, see results here, and indeed it is a split ward with one Tory councillor, Justin Anderson, and two Labour councillors Julian Bell and Sonika. The margin between Sonika and the next nearest Tory candidate was only 8 votes.

Neighbouring Greenford Green has three Tory councillors, including council leader Jason Stacey.

Which way do you think this will go?

I can only imagine that Ealing Southall’s Labour MP, Virendra Sharma, is planning for his next trip. This time the destination must be Cuba. I can’t think of any other reason why he would sign this Early Day Motion.

That this House commends the achievements of Fidel Castro in securing first-class free healthcare and education provision for the people of Cuba despite the 44 year illegal US embargo of the Cuban economy; notes the great strides Cuba has taken during this period in many fields such as biotechnology and sport in both of which Cuba is a world leader; acknowledges the esteem in which Castro is held by the people and leaders of Africa, Asia and Latin America for leading the calls for emancipation of the world’s poorest people from slavery, hunger and the denial of human rights such as the right to life, the right to shelter, the right to healthcare and basic medicines and the right to education; welcomes the EU statement that constructive engagement with Cuba at this time is the most responsible course of action; and calls upon the Government to respect Cuba’s right to self-determination and resist the aggressive forces within the US Administration who are openly planning their own illegal transition in Cuba.

What a wally?

Today’s big story for many Londoners will be reports that 169 Post Offices are to close across London. See story in tonight’s Standard here.

These closures will affect many in Ealing. The following Ealing Post Offices are on the list:

1. Greenford Green, 1238 Greenford Road, UB6
2. The Avenue, 22 The Avenue, W13
3. Boileau Parade, 2 Boileau Parade, W5
4. Bollo Bridge Road, 102-104 Bollo Bridge Road, W3
5. Churchfied Road, 24 Churchfield Road, W3
6. Haven Green, 2 Madeley Road, Haven Green, W5
7. Norwood Green, 175 Norwood Road, UB2
8. Park Parade, 6 Park Parade, Gunnersbury Avenue, W3

Also there are 3 post offices close to borough boundaries whose closure will impact upon Ealing residents, these are:

1. Chiswick High Road, 110 Chiswick High Road, W4 (LB Hounslow)
2. Askew Road, 68 Askew Raod W12 (LBH&F)
3. Goldhawk Road, 88 Goldhawk Road W12 (LBH&F)

The Mayor is threatening the Post Office with judicial review. In particular he is exercised that the consultation in only 6 weeks long. He cites Cabinet Office guidance that states that 12 weeks minimum is good practice for public consultations. We should hold the Mayor to this in future. His £1.4 million consultation on emissions related congestion charging, which he suppressed because he didn’t like the result, ran from 10th August 2007 to 19th October 2007, ie only ten weeks. What a jerk?

The Mayor’s press release doesn’t tell you how to respond to the consultation. The Evening Standard does:

Those wishing to register their views should contact http://www.postoffice.co.uk/networkchange or write to Post Office Ltd at Freepost Consultation (no stamp required) or email consultation@postoffice.co.uk.

Local MP Virendra Sharma has had some quotes published on the Ealing Times website today:

Cllr Stacey wrote to me in October of last year, stating that the proceeds from the sale of the shops in Southall has gone into a central capital receipts fund.

Having watched his cabinet in operation since then I am firmly of the view that the Tories are working hard to create an east-west divide in the borough.

The Tories have sold off local community assets in Southall, and diverted this income into bailing out projects to benefit their own areas in Greenford and the east of the borough.

Southall deserves better community facilities and the Tories should stop selling off its assets and make a real effort to invest in Southall’s future.

He seems to forget the £1.4 million to be spent on just the library on the Jubilee Gardens site and the work that has been commissioned to provide a new car park in Southall. Clearly he also missed the presentation of the Southall framework to councillors on 10th January (Whoops, I was in India!) but then Sharma has been pretty much totally AWOL from the council since he was elected as a councillor let alone an MP. The current council is committed to raising up the whole borough. Sharma seems to be intent on inflaming passions in Southall rather having any kind of proper debate.

The row of shops he is talking about was one of the most bizarre items in the council’s property portfolio. The idea that the council should hold shop leases was just plain silly. They have been sold off to the highest bidder and the cash will be spent across the borough. Great. If the council sold a surplus asset in Northfield I would expect the proceeds to go where the council’s priorities were, not to gold plating the streets of Northfield. It is a shame that Sharma can’t see the big picture. The council covers three Parliamentary constituencies not just Sharma’s and even he seems to be only interested in part of his patch. Maybe the workshy Sharma should get on with some actual work.

On 10th January I mentioned that local MP Virendra Sharma was AWOL and not back in Parliament voting for the first couple of days of business. I then posted about his three foreign trips to-date and noted he had had an extended Christmas break. Now he has updated his entry in the Register of Members’ Interests and it appears that he was in India for the third time in the space of sixth months and did not get back into the country until 10th January. See his list of trips below. So in six months our new MP has made four foriegn trips. Maybe one a year is reasonable but four in six months is quite simply preposterous.

Now that Labour and LibDem MPs have voted themselves a £10,000 a year communications allowance I look forward to getting a glossy brochure in due course with all of Sharma’s holiday snaps.

Cyprus 30 September-3 October 2007

Went for so-called study visit with Friends of Cyprus delegation. Accommodation costs, use of car and driver provided by the Republic of Cyprus House of Representatives. Return flights to Cyprus paid for out of House of Commons European travel allowance. Registered 17 October 2007. Since when has Sharma had any interest in Cyprus?

India 23-30 October 2007

Went to India, including New Delhi and Mumbai, for international Parliamentarians of Indian Origin event. Return flight to India, accommodation, meals and travel costs met by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. Registered 21 November 2007. Nice for him. Maybe useful for India to be able influence international parliamentarians. What’s in it for Ealing and Southall?

India 16-23 November 2007

Off to India again with London Mayor Ken Livingstone, see previous posting.

India 27 December 2007-10 January 2008

Off to Chandigarh, Punjab, India, for a Punjab State Government Conference on issues relating to overseas Punjabis. Upgrade to Business Class for return flight from Heathrow to New Delhi provided by Air India. Accommodation, meals and travel costs in India relating to the conference paid for by the Punjab State Government. Registered 1 February 2008. Whilst a minority of Sharma’s constituents might be Punjabis the rest of us would perhaps like him to work for us.

I acknowledge TheyworkForYou.com as the source for the Parliamentary stats – great job, again. Also thanks to Robert Darke for pointing out the latest trip to me.

Guido Fawkes is reporting (please note that a lot of his commenters are pretty wild and sweary) that local Labour MP, Andrew Slaughter, rather lost his rag today during a recording of Week in Westminster on Radio 4. This goes out on Saturday morning at 11am if you want to hear Slaughter telling I Want a Referendum Chairman Derek Scott to “f*&^ off”. Ooops.